


Black And White (And Screaming Color)

by lucipherer (mysticstargirl)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: ? - Freeform, Colors, Lung Cancer, M/M, Nurse!Phil, Synesthesia, T for cursing and sadness, cancer fic, cancer patient! Dan, chomesthesia, i guess, it's a bit of a roller coaster ride ngl, it's good though, poor babies, very lazily written, warning for character death?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 22:50:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6878062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysticstargirl/pseuds/lucipherer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the one where Dan is a teenager admitted to the hospital after his lung cancer hits a particularly nasty bump, and he hates it- but a beaming, beautiful, bright-eyed nurse named Phil Lester makes everything a bit better. </p><p>Dan is shades and layers of grey-black-white, but Phil is screaming color. The world is printer ink on cheap paper, Dan is thick, messy acrylic paint on rough paper, and Phil is pastel, watercolor stains on hot pressed canvas.</p><p>Everything fades with time, even masterpieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black And White (And Screaming Color)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the nerd herd](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=the+nerd+herd).



> another cancer fic. I hate all of you ahhahahahahahaaha 
> 
> just kidding, enjoy ! <3

In all technicalities, Dan didn't actually have to be here. 

Seriously. 

He's fine, almost alarmingly so. Death doesn't really bother him- he wouldn't mind dying. 

Everyone dies eventually; he's just taking a shorter path. 

He's fine.

Dan is absolutely _fine,_ and if _one more person_ asks him if he's okay, he's going to... 

Well, not much. He'll probably spit some passive aggressive words about the inevitability of death or something. But they'll be _very_ passive aggressive. 

The brown-eyed boy knows his family just wants what's best for him, but what's best for him isn't spending the rest of his life in the hospital. He doesn't want that. 

Yet here he is, hooked up to about four different machines and in white hospital garb, glaring at the wall. This is costly, this is boring, and this certainly won't save him. But he knows it's because his parents want to at least feel like they're doing everything they can for him. Dan is just another colorless person waiting to die. He won't complain. 

Not a lot, at least. 

The endless drone of the world around him is like a black and white picture from a printer, flat and cold and spotless greys.

So Dan spends his days sitting in a hospital bed in a hospital gown, everything around him whites and greys, cold plastic and hard metal, machines beeping and buzzing and ticking away what little time he has left. 

\-----------

"Morning!" A too chirpy, too bright voice says loudly at whatever ass crack of dawn 'o clock it is one morning, and Dan grumbles into his pillow, turning over. 

"Hello!" The voice says again, throwing open curtains and letting sunlight stream into the room, the still slightly orangey-pink of the sunrise filling the room with color. He feels the slightest breeze as his window is cracked open. 

"Oh my god, _fight me._ It is _way_ too early for--" Dan opens his eyes, ready to snap at whoever this asshole is, but stops when he sees them. 

Him. 

There's a tall man standing in front of him, practically glowing against the light pouring in from the window; his back to the sunrise, he beams at Dan with crinkled eyes and dark hair and the bluest blue eyes Dan has ever seen in his (granted, rather short) life. Despite being silhouetted against the window, his eyes scream the color of pale bluey-greeny-blue like nothing else, sharply contrasting the room now practically on fire in shades of pink and orange and gold. 

"Uh... hi." The young boy says, eyes wide. _Way to go, Daniel. Really eloquent,_ a voice in his head sneers sarcastically. 

The beautiful man laughs softly, and the sound covers up the incessant grey noise of the machinery around him in bursts of yellow-orange-pale green that tastes like the packet of lemon Ricolas on Dan's bedside table. The soothing, round edges of his voice seemingly smooth out every sharp, hard corner in the room. He seems to radiate warmth that soaks into every last inch of the hospital room, filling it with a sort of life that Dan didn't think was possible in a room where people are sent to die. 

So yeah, Dan waxes a little poetic, but _shit,_ if he says he wasn't mesmerized the moment he saw the man, he'd be lying through his teeth.

"I'm Phil!" His voice was smooth, eyes gentle and soft in a way that everything in the hospital room just _wasn't_ \- and the brown eyed boy can't help but to feel woefully colorless beside this man absolutely bursting with it. The printer-ink world is interrupted by smooth watercolor, pastel splashes on canvas.

"Dan." He says again, as he curses his awkwardness with every cell in his body- especially the ones trying to kill him. 

"I'm your new nurse!" Phil says, purple on his lips. "Great to meet you, Dan." 

The hospital room is just _full_ of Phil, color and life and softness, and Dan feels like he's breathing again for the first time in a long, _long_ while. 

\-----------

Phil turns out to be a twenty three year old ray of sunshine who brings Dan (sickeningly sweet) cappuccinos and chocolate chip scones and laughs with him over his own cups of coffee (always with milk and two sugars, Dan remembers). 

Dan feels so _alive._

The lanky man brings in his record player and puts on Muse (His favorite is the music that screams orange with bursts of green, but Phil likes the blue-pink-white ones more). He lets Dan read his comic books or just talks to him like he's a real person (not like he's a dying person, just another kid who likes music and pokémon). When Phil is in the room, the sun is silent and everything tastes like tulips.

 _So, so alive._

"You're kidding!" The brown-eyed boy exclaims, shoving Phil's shoulder. "Kanye's music is _amazing_!" 

"It's _okay_!" The nurse cries, but his blue eyes gleam with amusement. "He's not _that_ great!" 

Dan gasps dramatically, placing his hand on his chest. "Oh my god, take that back! _Actually_ fight me!" 

The older man just laughs, reaching over to ruffle his hair. "Yeah, yeah, bear. Sure." 

The next song that plays is Radiohead, another thing they've found to have in common- The song called Karma Police. Everything is bursts of red-blue-orange-green, spots of white and swaths upon swaths of of indigo and black, splashes of pinks and whites and yellows and _Phil_ , grinning at him as he mouths along to the words. 

It's just another memory filled with warmth and laughter and vivid color. 

\------------

"How come none of your friends visit, Dan?" Phil asks one day, sitting casually on his bed as he checks the machine beside them. 

"I don't _have_ friends." Is the simple response, which earns the younger boy an eyebrow-raise. 

The room is scattered with puddles of coffee and cocoa powder stains the walls. Powdery brown, chocolatey brown, coffee half-stirred with cream brown swirls across the ceiling like galaxies as all the warm, comforting sounds in the room gather there. 

"Surely you have someone." The nurse murmurs softly, gazing down at the boy. 

"I've got _you._ " Dan says, and Phil gives him a little smile, brushing some hair away from his forehead. 

"You're a regular old loser, aren't you? Your only friend is some random old guy you met a few weeks ago." He teases, and Dan rolls his eyes, but his dimples deepen in his cheeks. 

"Pfsh, you're not _that_ old. Shut up and fight me." 

\------------

"Now how in the _world_ did you manage _that_?" Phil's voice asks incredulously from the doorway of his hospital room, and Dan grins to himself, buried under a fort of pillows. 

"The nice nurse named Louise brought me extra pillows. I'm protected now! Fight me!" Dan cries dramatically through the pillows, and he hears Phil laugh (a beautiful sound, so light and full of life like forget-me-nots and wheat fields, like those minty lemon drop candies Louise brings him, a sound he's going to miss so much when he's--) 

"Nah." The younger boy can hear that Phil's right beside his bed now, and blinks owlishly when one piece of his makeshift fort moves just a little to reveal a single pale blue eyes crinkled with mirth. "I won't, because I'm pretty sure you're going to win." 

So Dan's left with pink cheeks under an enormous pile of pillows and Phil is smiling to himself as he sits in the chair beside the bed, playing Bowie on the CD player he brought in, and the world fades into pinks into blues into yellows.

\------------

Dan likes to try and forget that he's sitting in a hospital bed with three months left in his life. 

Phil is very good at helping him forget. 

Forget that he's sitting in a hospital bed with three months left in his life, and forget that he wouldn't mind dying. 

Dan thinks that if he died, he'd miss Phil a lot; and the thought scares him. 

He'd come to terms with dying ages ago; it was something that was going to happen and Dan would just live with it until, well, he wouldn't. 

But suddenly, all the harsh edges in his life were softened with gentle words and bright eyes, cold and hard plastic-steel-cement replaced with the slightly calloused texture of Phil's hands and the silkiness of Phil's dark hair, how he liked to wear colorful cotton shirts that were far softer than the scratchy hospital bedsheets. 

Dan has always seen more color than the average person, but with Phil the world is so much more _beautiful._

He's not sure if he's okay with that yet. 

\-------------

The first time it gets really, _really_ bad, Dan's scared. 

Hell, he's terrified; it happens in the middle of the night and everything's dark and he's _alone._

All he knows is that suddenly his eyes have snapped open and hoarse cries are escaping his lips as pain like fire rips through his lungs- and then he can't breathe, can't- oh fuck his throat is on fire and he's choking on something hot and coppery and fuck he's going to die he's going to _die he'sgoingtodie-_

All he can feel is the pain and the lack of oxygen and blinding panic- He'd promised to tell Phil all about this new book he fell in love with tomorrow- and a faraway sound of the moniter beside his bed going _insane_ to the tune of sharp, blaring pink- He's never going to see Phil again, alarm like yellow, oh god, he's never going to hear that voice and feel those hands and see that smile- angry reds like blood spurting from arteries- and then the door slams open, startling him further- _Phil, I never got to tell him how much he means to me, oh my god Phil Phil Phil_ \- 

And then there's blackness. 

\-------------

"--eighteen year old _boy_ was by _himself_ \--" A voice is yelling furiously, through a layer of muddled water, when Dan's eyes blink blearily open. Faded orange fills his vision as he pushes his eyelids up. "He's supposed to be on watch, you fucking _left_ him alone in unstable condition--" 

Phil? 

"...Phil."

The yelling stops immediately and then there's soft hands and warmth on his cheek and neck and soft, whispered words, "hey bear. Right here, it's me. It's Phil I'm right here, Daniel, are you okay?" A stream of gently crooned words as fingers work through his curly hair eases the orange into creamy citrus. 

"Phil," Dan just says, trying to get his eyes to work, and then his vision clears and there's Phil, staring down at him with wide, worried eyes. "Phil," the boy says again, trying to get some thought running through his head. "Phil, Phil, Phil Phil Philphilphil--" 

"Hey, shh, it's alright bear. It's okay, I've got you.." The nurse cuts off the boy's babbling, gently hugging him. Oxygen hurts to inhale but the fruity smell of Phil's hair like some weird stir of green and white is all Dan needs to start properly breathing again, relaxing into the touch. 

"I thought I was gonna die." He whispers, eyes wide as he stares at the wall behind Phil. "I thought I was gonna _die,_ Phil." 

"I'm sorry, bear. I'm sorry." 

"No, listen-" The boy huffs in frustration as he pulls back from the hug, staring into the older boy's eyes. "Phil, I've been ready to die since I was diagnosed." 

Phil's face crumples a little, eyebrows furrowing. "Dan, you--" 

"No, _listen,_ Phil." Dan takes in a shaky breath, fingers tightening where they're holding Phil's hands. "Last night, when I thought I was going to die, Phil, I was _scared._

"I've always been okay with dying but last night, when I finally thought I was going to die I _didn't want to._ " 

The blue eyed man just stares at him quietly, gazing at him with a worried but warm look, and Dan thinks he might be crying. He's not very sure. 

"I don't want to die, Phil." He chokes out, and he hates that his throat clogs up when he cries, because all it does is remind him that his lungs suck and his life sucks and he's going to die and one day is going to be the last day he sees Phil ever. 

The nurse's hands are warm as they hold his cheek, his calloused thumb running over a cheekbone, the other one soothing against his shoulder.

"I don't want to die, Phil." He says in hues of violet and baby blue. Phil sighs yellow clouds, heavy like gold dust on Dan's shoulders.

\---------------

Life doesn't magically get better. 

But Phil's given him an incentive to fight for it.

"I'm going to die." He says softly, as Phil's scribbling something down on the clipboard attached to the foot of his bed. 

The older man pauses in his writing, staring expressionless down at the paper, the pen in his hand still. The scratch-scritch-scratch of it spotted grey-blue across the white walls like stars or the freckles on Phil's arms.

"I'm gonna die, Phil. I'm eighteen years old and I'm going to die." He says again, urgently. 

"Dan." Phil's voice is heart achingly gentle, something like fondness and pain throbbing red and purple in every single syllable that drops from his lips. "Dan, please." 

"I've never gotten drunk, and I haven't graduated high school. I haven't gotten to vote yet and Sherlock season 3 isn't even out." Dan's words are speeding up, spilling out regrets like this is the only chance he'll ever have, painting layers upon layers of blue-blue-black. "I've never dated anyone before. I wanted to get a dog. I wanted to be... something, I wanted to make something of myself. Be an actor maybe. Anything more than just a sick boy who died quietly. I wanted to go to Japan, be in a movie, make friends. There are books going to be published after I die that i won't get to read, movies I won't get to watch. I'm never going to see anyone again, and I'm--" He pauses to swallow, his eyes still locked onto Phil's (whose eyes are wet, eyebrows furrowed in pain, the blue in his eyes darkened with regret and sadness). "I'm going to miss you _so much._ " 

Phil lets out a half-cry, dropping the clipboard on his bed and the pen to the ground before rushing over to wrap Dan up in his arms, burying his face in his hair. 

"I'm so sorry, bear, so sorry it has to be like this. Would give anything to fix it, you know I would, anything in the world for you, _Dan_..." 

Dan doesn't cry, but Phil does it for him this time, hot tears into his shoulder, hands shaking and fingers tight in Dan's hospital gown. 

"Never even got to see you healthy, in clothes you like to wear, never got to take you places and buy you things and introduce you to people," Phil's the one babbling now, but the younger boy listens, watches Phil's own, slightly different blues. "Could've loved you so much, Dan, shown you the world if you wanted..." 

And Dan gently rubs Phil's back as the man breaks down, hot, choked breaths working out of his throat, dropping splatters of purple pain all across Dan's sheets. 

Even as he feels loss and grief and fury rip through his mind ( _unfair, how unfair, eighteen years old and he's already through_ ), the sick boy just runs his hand over the nurse's hair over and over again, the gesture bringing them both comfort. 

\------------

"I'm sorry for breaking down yesterday. It was unprofessional of me." Phil murmurs softly the morning after they'd both spilled their hearts out the evening before. 

The words shouldn't sting, but they do. Just a little. 

"I mean. Whatever," The younger boy huffs, glancing away from him. "It's not like I completely spilled my guts to you about my regrets in life or anything." 

When he glances back, the blue eyes are so pained he feels a little bad for the harsh words. "You know I didn't mean it like that, Dan." 

For a second everything is suffocatingly grey like the sky before rain.

"Fight me." The words have the desired effect and the tension in the room eases into whites and pastel blue, and Phil gives him a weak smile. 

"Maybe I will, yeah?" 

\-----------

The second time it gets worse, Dan's pretty sure he _is_ dead. 

One second he's _fine,_ grinning and talking shit with Phil like nothing matters, and then the sun _explodes._

The sunlight was warm and golden and Phil's pale skin _glowed_ under it, and they'd just been talking about everything and nothing at all. 

Then the sun gets too bright and everything goes white as hot pain explodes in his head and burns down his spine and he screams in pain. Harsh ringing like copper coating his ears and a million aluminum cans all being crushed at once into bursts of silver-

"Shit," He hears Phil whisper through the ringing pain in his ears. 

The heart monitor beside him screams in alarm and he can _feel_ his lungs filling with liquid as he manages to shove his eyes open one last time in a desperate effort to comprehend what's happening- all he gets is a glimpse of terrified blue eyes and Phil's hand slamming the call button as he reaches out to take Dan's face. 

This time, it all fades to white. 

\------------

Dan wakes up to Phil breathing violets into the bedsheets, eyes wide and rimmed red and sniffling like drooping willow leaves.

\------------

It had been easy, for the last few months, to pretend that Dan was okay. 

Sure, Phil was in his uniform, Dan was in the gown, but with the two of them together the room was bursting with light and life and color. 

But now, with Dan staring blankly at the ceiling or wall as Phil tries his best to talk to him, now it's not so easy.

"Not a lot of color." Dan says, eyebrows furrowed, and Phil holds his hand tightly, remembers how even just weeks ago it had still been a soft, full hand- it's thin now, almost delicate. "Can't even see your eyes anymore." 

"I'm sorry, Dan." 

"I wanna see them. Wanna see you." The younger boy says weakly, and Phil hasn't seen Dan cry in a long time- it's so hard. It's so hard, seeing the boy in pain and not being able to fix it. Fuck, it's his _job_ to fix it and yet.... 

"I'm sorry, Dan." He whispers again, because it's agony, it's watching the most horrific thing in front of his eyes when Dan just shakes his head and wipes his eyes, pulling his hand out of Phil's. 

"S'not your fault. Can I... Can I just, sleep? Please?" 

"Course, bear." 

\------------

Dan doesn't do much talking his last few days- Phil doesn't expect him to. 

Sure, the older man longs for the gentle grin or the teasing lilt of a voice or that gleam in his eye that he's grown to care for so much... 

But Dan really doesn't do much of _anything_ anymore. 

Phil is kind of sad, because he loves Dan's voice and the way his eyes crinkle and dimples deepen when he smiles. He loves the gentle fingers, longer than his, and the soft ruffle of curly brown hair and the way his eyes flutter when he's sleepy. 

But Dan really _really_ doesn't do much of anything anymore. 

\------------

"A new type of therapy?" Phil asks, eyes wide. 

The doctors had nodded, said words that Phil kind of remembers from med school, something about chemicals and cells and a _cure._

Dan nods, eyes wide. 

"They want to test it and have offered it to me and hell, if I'm going to die anyway I figure it's worth a try," The boy talks more than he's talked in weeks so Phil listens. "Because they're saying it just might be able to fix me completely, Phil, I might actually be able to _live_ \--" 

"Are you sure, Dan?" He asks softly, eyebrows furrowed, and the boy in front of him settles down some, though his eyes still gleam. 

"Phil, I want to _live,_ " Dan whispers, and there's a rawness to his voice that Phil hasn't heard in a long time. He looks vulnerable, and he looks exactly like what he is- a _boy._

"Fuck, Dan, I want you to live, too." Phil says, and the younger boy smiles, a beautiful, beaming grin that has the nurse's heart _aching._

"Then let me try. Let me try it- it can't make things worse, can it?" 

Phil supposes not. 

\-------------

Dan seems to be getting better; color has returned to his face. His hair is softer and his eyes are brighter and there's a rosiness in his cheeks that still makes Phil's heart stumble. He gleefully tells Phil he can see the pinks and yellows again. When Phil laughs, Dan tells him it's like minty lemon drops. 

Phil doesn't get it.

He's just so _beautiful,_ in Phil's eyes. So stunning and strong and beautiful. 

Even from the halls outside Dan's room he can hear laughter, and it honestly makes Phil's head reel a little each time. 

When he opens the door with food or a clipboard or whatever it is he happens to be bringing in today, Dan's turning towards him already with a grin on his face like he hasn't a care in the world, looking for all the world like he's absolutely gleaming with life. 

"Phil!" 

"Hey, bear." Phil would laugh, walking over to stand beside the bed and reach out to ruffle the curly hair affectionately. 

"Nice! Now that you're here, you won't _believe_ what Louise told me today..." 

"What, you gossiping about like the lady nurses around this place?" The nurse teases gently, teasingly, and Dan would flush, smacking his hand away. 

"Oh, fight me." 

And Phil's missed that phrase a lot.

For the first time, it's like he can make it, could actually, _seriously_ make it out of this alive- 

Then it takes a turn for the worst. 

\-----------

It's over, it's all over. 

Phil's been sitting numbly in the shitty, hard plastic chairs in the hall for nearly two hours at this point, just trying to keep breathing. 

He'd go back to work if he could make his legs work, but he can't. He can't, he can barely breathe. 

Nurses going by give him sympathetic glances, because apparently it's popular news around the hospital that Dan and Phil get along. 

Phil just wants Dan to be okay. 

But he knows, better than anyone, really; there's nothing left. 

There's nothing left but to watch a beautiful soul waste away, and it hurts. 

There's nothing left, though. This is the end. 

\------------

"Y'know, I think I'm in love with you." Dan says, suddenly, staring up at Phil from where he's laying in bed. 

Phil's hand stops, mid-scribble on the clipboard, staring blankly at the paper in his hand. 

"Like, legitimately, literally in love with you." The boy keeps going, almost like the nurse isn't even there. "Totally, completely, stupidly in love with you and all your colors." 

The nurse lets silence fill the room for a second, before continuing to write on the board, barely even registering, hardly responding to his patient. 

"Phil?" 

"Go to sleep, Daniel." 

"...Okay." 

\----------

"I'm a little bit in love with you, too." Phil says, when Dan is asleep and pale and drawn, half sunken into the sheets of the hospital bed. 

\----------

Phil isn't sure what he expected. Teary declarations of love? Dramatic goodbyes? He really doesn't know. 

It had been perfectly lovely day, sky a pale blue half covered with heavy clouds, just the way the boy likes them. Phil's there, fingers intertwined with Dan's slender ones, staring, watching. 

"This sucks." Dan had mumbled, blinking heavily. 

Phil had made a soft sound of agreement, his thumb gently brushing over the back of Dan's hand. 

It was mostly quiet these days, just soft conversations, Phil taking Dan's vitals when he had to and telling him awful, cheesy jokes to bring out a glimmer of a smile that used to light up the entire room. 

Phil is still colorful, pale pink lips and blue blue eyes, bright red in the collar of his shirt and the slightest trace of green-purple-blue just under translucent skin. When he speaks, his words are lilac, or deep, deep blue, occasionally laced with the sparkle of yellow they always used to have.

Dan feels like grey.

"I'm tired, Phil." The boy hates the words as they fall from his lips, because they're grey and darker grey and even darker grey, like storm clouds brewing on the tip of his tongue.

"Go to sleep, bear." Phil responds, leaning forward to press a kiss to his forehead. It leaves a splash of soft, soft pink against Dan's eyelid, hanging from his eyelashes.

"I love you." He mumbles, watching the golden words settle like pixie dust on Phil's lips. 

"I love you too, Dan." 

It was a Tuesday- Dan said Tuesday sounded like dark, dark green, and Phil wishes with all his heart that he could understand what that meant.

\----------

It didn't matter. It didn't matter, because Phil could cry for hours and days and _years_ and it wouldn't bring Dan back. 

No amount of begging or pleading, breathless sobbing or grieving would bring Dan back to Phil. 

Phil tries all of those things anyway.

\--

It's quiet in that hospital room where Dan used to be, colorless and flat and pale. 

Phil's colors are subdued like a sun faded painting. Every other thing he sees reminds him of Dan, including bags of Ricolas in the store or warm cans of coffee, pillows and Muse and Bowie and Radiohead, sunsets and chocolate chip scones and shiba inus, Sherlock s4 DVDs and books and the rain. 

But the world still turns on, and so must Phil.

**Author's Note:**

> i like colors? they're all over the place. 
> 
> oh, and I'm... sorry?


End file.
